Re: [cobalt-developers] runaway perl scripts (slightly offtopic :)

[corliss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, cLive hoLLoway wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I've got a perl cgi script that seems to be running continuously sometimes
> when invoked.

Sounds like the script hits a race condition occasionally.  That's one more
compelling reason to stick with CGI wrappers--you can limit both the resources
it can consume, as well as the execution time.

> I'm completely baffled coz I've been trying everything to emulate/force the
> error to occur, but I can't. It's only happened to an (anonymous) end user
> - who hasn't reported anything.
> 
> So my question is, is there anyway to analyse a running process? ie, can
> you query the process if you know the PID to find out what it's doing? Or
> is there a better approach? (going through 3,000 lines of code doesn't
> exactly fill me with joy :)

Once the process has already been spawned (without debugging already enabled),
you're pretty much SOL without some kernel debugging tools.

> Or will the httpd log record an error? That's where I'm off to now... <sigh>

If the script produces any warnings or prints anything to STDERR, Apache will
put it in the error log.

	--Arthur Corliss
	  Programmer/Administrator
	  Gallant Technologies (http://www.gallanttech.com/)